medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. November) is the feast day of:
Prosdocimus of Padua (??). P. was an early bishop of Padua venerated there and elsewhere in the Veneto since at least the fifth or sixth century, when his image (later detached) bearing the legend SCS PROSDOCIMVS EPS ET CONFESS ('Holy Prosdocimus, bishop and confessor') was carved on a sarcophagus, this part of which was discovered in 1957 in his tomb in Padua's church of Santa Giustina. An early eleventh-century Vita (BHL 6961a) makes him the evangelist of Padua, sent by St. Peter to the upper Adriatic region along with Sts. Mark the Evangelist (Aquileia) and Apollinaris (Ravenna). According to the same account, P. was still alive when St. Justina (whose Passio he is here said to have written and whose church at Padua he is said to have consecrated) was martyred under Maximian (so ca. 304, supposedly). In this context, it is refreshing to read on a page from Padua's Basilica del Santo (i.e., of St. Anthony of Padua)
http://www.basilicadelsanto.org/ing/visita/storia.asp
that "[P.'s] old age has been confirmed by the recent recognition of his bones that rest in the Basilica of St. Giustina."
Whereas P. is represented on the sarcophagus fragment as a youngish, beardless man:
http://www.webalice.it/inforestauro/imgarte/marmo14.jpg
(there's a much larger reproduction of the entire relief in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 10, cols. 1185-86), in later practice he is customarily shown as old. See, for example, this detail of his statue (by someone working with Donatello) at the high altar of Padova's Basilica del Santo:
http://www.basilicadelsanto.org/gfx/visita/sprosdocimo_bronzi.jpg
or this painting of him by Mantegna:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Andrea_Mantegna_018.jpg
The sarcophagus fragment is now mounted on the wall above P.'s sixteenth-century tomb in the originally late antique Shrine (_sacello_) of St. Mary (sometimes called "of St. Prosdocimus") in Padova's Basilica di Santa Giustina. There is an extensive account of this part of the church (resystematized in the 1560s) in Ireneo Daniele, _San Prosdocimo vescovo di Padova nella legenda, nel culto, nella storia_ (Padova: Istituto per la storia ecclesiastica padovana, 1987), pp. 81-153 (plus two plates between pp. 80 and 81). Its late antique aspects are also discussed in Gillian Mackie, _Early Christian Chapels in the West: Decoration, Function, and Patronage_ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003). For some expandable views, see:
http://tinyurl.com/aslw8
BHL 6961 (a preface) and 6961a are edited by Daniele, _San Prosdocimo vescovo..._, pp. 235-48.
Best,
John Dillon
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